Government Regulator Investigating DRAM Price Fixing Possibility

China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is looking into the possibility of DRAM price-fixing between the major memory and Flash suppliers, with specific interest from the Pricing Supervision Department of said commission. An official from the regulatory body, Xu Xinyu of NDRC, stated the following: “We have noticed the price surge and will pay more attention to future problems that may be caused by ‘price fixing’ in the sector.”

This comes following recent reports that Samsung initiated plans to increase supply by 20%, which still failed to meet rising demand. The NDRC told the China Daily, a state-run media outlet, that the NDRC has paid attention to DRAM pricing and demand over the past 18 months, and that memory suppliers are now under the eye of the NDRC. There are only four major suppliers in the industry, and those include SK Hynix, Micron, Toshiba, and Samsung.

Samsung has allegedly already had “conversations” with the NDRC, according to Wang Yanhui, Secretary-General of Mobile China Alliance. At this time, no actions have been taken against the memory manufacturers, but the possibility of price fixing is being investigated.

Most of the memory shortage has the finger pointed at mobile phones, which have driven-up demand for both NAND and DRAM. The effects, of course, are wide-reaching, and even impact relatively “small” industries like PC gaming.

We’ll stay on top of this story as it develops.

Source: Reuters, the China Daily

- Steve Burke